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Actions of Enterprise - IL
Enterprise Grange is located in O’Fallon, Illinois, just 14 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri.
“Enterprise Grange was chartered in 1956,” says Henrietta Keller, “and we have three charter members who are still with us.”
“Originally our Grange started in a one-room schoolhouse called the Enterprise School northeast of O’Fallon. A lot of people lived around there, and that’s where they met – and how we got the name of Enterprise Grange,” adds Norm Keller.
“We are a traditional Grange that opens with full ritual at every meeting, and visitors to our Grange are always impressed,” says Henrietta.
“In 1956 when Enterprise Grange was chartered, the population of O’Fallon was 2400. Today, it’s around 26,000!” says Henrietta. “The community has changed a lot!”
“We are in St. Clair County. There are eight Granges in our Pomona, and we host Pomona once a year.”
“We meet in a little log cabin about 25 foot by 25 foot,” says John Brundage, Overseer of Enterprise Grange. “The cabin or Hut as we call it, was built in 1934 as the meeting place for the American Legion. It was constructed from electric poles that lined the railroad that ran from Lebanon, Illinois to St. Louis, MO from 1903-1928. They put in a coal-fired furnace. The total cost of the building in 1934 was $5000.”
“Today we maintain the rustic appearance. It has two floors with the meeting facility upstairs on the ground floor, and the kitchen, furnace room and restrooms in the basement,” says John. “We have a wagon-wheel chandelier that came from the stove foundry. It’s been electrified, but it’s much older than the building itself.”
“The city of O’Fallon owns the Hut,” says John. “Enterprise Grange leases it for $1 a year, and we have a 100-year lease. We rent it out to anybody who needs it for $50. It’s now been named an Historical Landmark.”
“We’ve made improvements like installing a new furnace, adding air conditioning and laying a new wood floor. People who want to rent it go through the city parks department. The city also uses the building for their training classes. It’s located in a park in a central location in the city, and a popular feature is that there’s a playground quite near the building.”
“When we went through the Action Grange program, we talked about membership and an idea that came up was mentoring,” says John. “So I volunteered to mentor at Central Elementary School. I became a mentor for a 2 nd grade boy named Daniel. Well, Daniel is now 13. We’ve been meeting once a week after school during the school year since he was in 2 nd grade. We did things like the Pine Derby, he’s in band so I go to his band concerts. Initially he had control problems, but he has matured. His feet are bigger than mine! He’s not quite as tall since I’m 6’1”, but he’s getting there. And he is now a member of our Grange – and quite an enthusiastic member. He’s very eager to help out and he often does the flag ceremony for us.”
“The whole idea of mentoring – besides being good for the young person – was to attract younger members who had school-aged children. With Daniel, it didn’t work out that way. He’s been adopted by his grandmother, so mentoring has increased our Grange membership – by one,” says John.
“The mentoring program is wonderful,” adds Mary Stewart. “Daniel’s grades have really improved. He’s now on the honor roll.”
“You can really tell the difference in the boy since the beginning,” says Arline Magee. “He’s gotten much more outgoing, and he’s so eager to help the elderly.”
“The process is good for the mentor, too,” says John. “It’s been quite rewarding to see Dan listen and learn how to ask questions. That was a struggle for him. His grandmother had some heart problem and Dan didn’t know what it was, so I kept asking him whether he’d asked her or not. It took the longest time, but finally after about three weeks, he finally asked. I think Dan was really pleased with himself.”
Mentoring has been proven to be very effective. In programs where high school students mentor younger children, everyone benefits. But the ones that benefit the most are the high school students. Their grades tend to go up, they are more engaged in school, and they have fewer behavioral problems. You can learn more about School-Based Mentoring through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.
“The log cabin is too small for us to hold dinners. That is how most of the other Granges in our area do fundraising,” says Arline Magee, chair of the Ways and Means Committee. “Our project is to make apple butter. It takes 30 people over about 4 days, and we make over 800 pints of apple butter that we then sell – and we always sell out!”
“It takes 55 bushels of Jonathon apples, 125 pounds of sugar, stick cinnamon and star anise. We core the apples on Friday and cook into applesauce. On Saturday we cook the applesauce into apple butter. We usually have 7-8 kettles going all the time. A couple of kettles are electrified but the others have to be hand stirred. We take orders from community members and sell a lot of it at a neighboring community’s fall festival.”
“You can get a lot of smoke in your lungs,” says John, “but the apple butter is worth it.”
Membership at Enterprise Grange has been pretty constant over the last five years.
“In 2002, we had 72 members,” says Norm Keller. “Now we have 69 members with an average age of about 60. We usually get between 20-25 people out to our meetings which are twice a month on the 1 st Saturday and the 3 rd Friday. We just don’t get out to drag in new members. We know that’s what needs to be done. We keep saying it needs to be done, but so far, at least, it hasn’t gotten done.”
“Our Grange prepares and serves meals to the volunteers who clean up the park in the spring. We planted bulbs, butterfly bushes, and other perennials that attract butterflies. The bulbs did beautifully. The perennials didn’t do quite so well. We had a real warm spell in February and that wasn’t good for the perennials,” says Mary Stewart.
“On May 5, 2007, when our Log Cabin was deemed an Historic Landmark, the city presented a plaque to Master Kenneth Joseph,” says Mary. “We held an open house and were quite pleased at how many people attended.”
“We took ice cream and cake to the Grange Nursing Home to celebrate a members birthday, and we helped the residents play bingo. We made small lace potpourri sachets for gifts. We collect eye glasses, and run soda stands at the Mayfest on a Saturday in May from 11-5 and in August we will sell bratwurst at the annual homecoming,” says Mary.
“We have 3 voting members on the C-FAR (Council on Food and Agricultural Research Committee). We build two floats each year. One is in August for the Homecoming Association. They choose a theme and then we decide on a float. The second is for Santa’s arrival. That float is strung with lights, so it’s a big deal to run the generator so we can keep the lights lit.”
“We’ve participated several years in our community’s Salute to Scott Air Force Base Day. There’s food, games, and entertainment. We gave out pencils and lollipops.”
“We celebrate Grange Month by attending one of our members’ churches as a group. We do a display in a business window. We showed corn, wheat, and soybeans with a poster that explains how many pounds are in a bushel and so forth.”
“One of our members was asked to speak to a 7 th and 8 th grade class after they studied an historical era. They were interested in the games that children played back then. She talked about the changes she’s seen in her 86 years, she took in a picture of the B-16 she flew in – and the boys were fascinated by that.”
“Our members cook and serve dinners to Rotarians who were erecting a building in a new park, and to family members after a funeral. We did a 90 th birthday with about 100 people present. Five of our members have served on the Grange Nursing Home board. We served food to llama shearers.”
“Our favorite community service project is the Dictionary Project. We contact the schools in May each year to find out how many 2 nd graders they have, and then we order the dictionaries and give them out to the children in the fall,” says Mary. “We put in a sticker that says who the dictionary is from, and we work with different community organizations. So far in four years we’ve given out 2,342 dictionaries, and this year we’ll give out another 600 to the 3 rd graders in our community.”
“Our Juniors put together hygiene kits for State Grange, we collected winter coats and generators to send to Iraq, we donated to after-prom parties, gave $200 to build a library in Kenya, and $1000 to the Farm Bureau to build a new show ring for 4-H kids to show their animals,” says Mary. “We help put together baskets for needy families and give monetary gifts toward those baskets.”
“We have a program at every meeting,” says Henrietta Keller, Lecturer of Enterprise Grange. “We had Debbie Schachner who walked across America to raise funds to build a library in Kenya. She came and did two programs for us. We had a foreign exchange student from Argentina who came and did an excellent job as a magician. Really, I’d expect him to be a professional at some point.”
“Our neighbor across the street sells medical equipment for disabled people and he came and showed us different things that are available. Chaplain of the Air Force, Jan Dashner, spoke about her two trips to Iraq. We’ve had Grange members talk about their different occupations, and we’ve had a program on the history of the Grange Hut.”
“We just had our picnic,” says Henrietta, “and we had different games that we play then. Enterprise Grange furnishes the meat and then everyone else brings a dish.”
“We have had a Junior Grange charter since 1964, but right now we only have 3 Juniors,” says Henrietta. “Our members are active in Pomona, State, and National Grange. We have six of our members serve on State Grange Committees, one member was on National Lecturer and Community service committee, two members who were State Grange Officers and one National Officer”.
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